


Catatonia

by loves_books



Category: A-Team (2010), A-Team - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 16:57:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal tries to help Face cope after a mission goes terribly wrong.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Warnings for dark themes: mentions of child abuse, non con, and war crimes. Nothing too graphic, I think, but there is blood and there is death, though not of team members. Please do not read if you think these themes will disturb you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catatonia

**Author's Note:**

> Again, warnings for dark themes ahead. Please do not read if mentions of child abuse or non con will disturb you.

“I’m here,” Hannibal whispers, for what must be the hundredth time that morning. “You’re safe, sweetheart. It’s all over.”

Still no response from the man lying curled up on the bed, and Hannibal can only sigh, feeling about as useless as he ever has in his life. Face is awake but still unresponsive, those usually bright blue eyes now dull and staring blankly into space. The occasional blink betrays his level of consciousness, but he hasn’t spoken or even looked any of the team in the eye since they found him in that filthy little hut, nearly twenty hours ago now.

Threading his fingers slowly through his lover’s hair, stroking gently, Hannibal swallows hard and settles himself on the very edge of the mattress, close enough but not too close. The memory of finding his boy in such a state will haunt his dreams for a very long time, he knows, but he has to hope he can find a way to coax Face back to him. Face is still in there – the fact that he will obey Hannibal’s gentle commands shows that much – and he hasn’t retreated too far into himself that he can’t come back. He will come back. He has to.

Another simple mission that had turned out to be anything but. Face captured before Hannibal had even seen the enemy attack, spirited away from the team and just vanished, gone. Only a matter of hours, thankfully, before they had managed to track him down, bribery proving more effective than outright violence in the end, and they had found that little hut. The two blood-soaked bodies lying outside were the first warning sign that something horrific had happened there.

One female, young, perhaps in her twenties. A single gunshot wound to the head, her body clearly tossed carelessly to the ground, limbs akimbo. And one boy, her son perhaps, no more than ten years old, though probably younger. Stripped naked, hands bound behind his back with thick rope. Another gunshot to the head, but the blood staining the insides of his skinny thighs told a tale of unbelievable brutality and war crimes, and Hannibal had had to swallow down bile as he looked at the ruined body, turning it to anger instead. Anger he could use.

Silence from within the hut, but the team knew that didn’t guarantee anything. They wasted no time before getting in, kicking the front door straight through, only to find more bodies. Four more bodies, all male, all clearly dead. And Face, sat cross-legged in the middle of it all, covered from head to toe in blood. He didn’t raise his head when his team rushed in, didn’t acknowledge their presence at all. Just stared into space, a blank look on his dirty features.

He’s still staring now, Hannibal thinks sadly, keeping up his gentle stroking. Face hasn’t flinched away from his touch, not at any point. Back in that hut, Hannibal had stripped Face as much as he could, searching desperately for injuries but finding none. For the most part, the blood wasn’t Face’s; it was from the men who lay dead around him. Deep gashes and broken skin around his wrists though, presumably from the heavy iron manacles which lay discarded in the corner of the room. Some bruises on his tanned skin, still fresh and growing darker, but nothing more. Hannibal had spoken softly to his boy the whole time, both questions and encouragements, but Face didn’t move unless he was asked, didn’t speak a single word, didn’t look at Hannibal once.

It wasn’t the killing, Hannibal thought he knew that much for sure. Face had almost certainly been the one to kill those men, local warlords who had terrorised the nearby villages – no loss there, and he had almost certainly been saving his own life. None of them liked killing, but they were soldiers. It came with the job. You did what you had to do to stay alive and protect others, then you dealt with everything else afterwards. Had a few drinks when you got back to base. Talked it out if you needed to. Nightmares, sometimes, but that came with the life they had chosen and the jobs they did. Face wouldn’t have fallen into such a state from just these killings. He would have finished the job, gotten away, found Hannibal and his team, maybe broken down later when it was all over. 

Instead, he just sat and stared, in complete shock.

“What happened, Temp?” Hannibal asks softly, again for the hundredth time. He moves his fingers from his boy’s hair down to stroke gently over a stubbled cheek, caressing his lover and hoping for something, anything. “I wish you would talk to me. Or look at me. I love you so much. Nothing you say will make me love you less.”

A blink, and Hannibal holds his breath for a long moment. But nothing comes of it, Face staring still at some fixed point over Hannibal’s shoulder, his long body still curled in on itself on top of the covers. 

He won’t move unless Hannibal asks him, the colonel has learnt that much. Back in that hut, satisfied Face wasn’t critically injured, the need to get moving had to take priority over getting his lieutenant to respond. When a few reluctant slaps across the cheek had failed to rouse Face, Hannibal had fully expected to have to get BA to carry him out. Instead, he had been startled when his request for Face to get on his feet had actually worked. Gentle instructions seemed to work best, not barked orders which got no response at all, and Hannibal had dared to slip one arm around Face’s slender waist in support and guidance as they quickly headed away from the hut. He tried to shield his boy from the view of those two bodies outside, but from the way Face was just staring, eyes not really focussed on anything, he doubted the younger man would have seen them anyway.

Gentle orders and steady hands had gotten them all away and to safety, BA actually climbing willingly into the waiting chopper and helping Face to climb in after him, Hannibal helping from behind. Lift your foot, Face, now give me your hand, that’s it, just like that…

Thankfully it hadn’t been a long trip back, but Hannibal had kept Face close by his side the whole time, using antiseptic wipes to carefully clean those torn wrists and tape temporary dressings over the worst of the wounds. Not once did Face hiss or whimper in discomfort, though Hannibal had known his gentle ministrations had to have hurt like hell. He had used the rest of the wipes to clean as much of the blood and gore from his lover’s face and hands as he could, though Face had still looked like he’d stepped out of a horror movie. Blood staining those caramel curls, and normally his lover would be complaining loudly about that.

But not a single word escaped Face’s lips. He just stared into space, blinking steadily. No reaction to anything, not even when they landed back at base and BA finally started to rant and rave about how he’d been forced into another ‘flying machine of death’. Nothing.

Hannibal had known that, if he’d left Face in the hands of the medics, he wouldn’t be able to help his lover the way he wanted, the way he thought Face needed. Face wasn’t badly injured, and whatever was wrong he knew deep down that Face needed him close by. There were some advantages to being the infamous Colonel Hannibal Smith – he was barely questioned as he swept Face away from the landing crews, away from the chaos and towards their team’s quarters. It helped that Face was mobile and on his own feet – gentle suggestions and a steadying hand on the younger man’s arm let Hannibal lead him away quickly, promising to sort out the debriefing later, promising anything as long as they were allowed to leave.

He’d hoped that getting Face somewhere quiet and safe would let his lover come out of himself a little, to allow him to shout and yell if he needed to, or to sob and scream if not. But still nothing, just those blankly staring eyes, no emotion of any kind visible on what was normally the most expressive face Hannibal had ever seen. He’d coaxed his boy out of those blood-soaked clothes and urged him into the shower, eventually stripping off his own clothes and joining him when he saw how Face just stood there beneath the water, making no effort to wash himself, looking more than a little pathetic. 

Talking softly the whole time, Hannibal had washed the blood and grime from that strong body, relieved beyond belief to find his initial assessment had been accurate and Face really did have nothing worse than a few bruises. After seeing the horrors inflicted on that young boy, he had been terrified that Face might have been sexually assaulted too, which might have gone some way towards explaining the non-responsive state. The last time that had happened to Face, on a mission gone completely to hell in the frozen north of Russia, Hannibal had seen his boy fighting back wildly when the medics arrived, determined not to let them examine him, determined not to let them see what had been done to him. Face had broken one doctor’s arm and given another a black eye before Hannibal had been able to get close enough to calm him down. 

If it had happened again, if Face had been raped… It might have put him into this state of utter blankness, certainly, but there were no signs of any sort of sexual assault. Hannibal had finished washing his lover, keeping his touch as clinical and innocent as he could manage, before helping him get dry and dressed. Face had let him cleanse and redress the raw wounds on his wrists before following Hannibal’s gentle instructions to get into their bed. He’d lain there so very still, head resting on the pillow with damp hair curling around his ears, those blue eyes still just staring into space. 

“You’re safe, Face. Nothing and no one can hurt you now. I’m right here.” The same words Hannibal had used then, trying to reassure his lover that it was all over, that Face really was out of that tiny hut. Then, as now, there was no response, those staring eyes shifting ever so slightly away whenever Hannibal tried to make eye contact. “I love you, kid. You’re okay.”

Not knowing how far he dared to go, last night Hannibal had eventually given in to the need to hold his boy close, hoping the physical contact would snap Face out of it. He’d slid carefully into the bed, settling himself in a sitting position against the headboard, and, speaking aloud the entire time, had coaxed Face closer. He still hadn’t known if Face would flinch from him, but to his vast relief his lover had uncurled a little and stretched out into Hannibal’s lap, head cushioned on Hannibal’s stomach, legs close by Hannibal’s own. He’d kept his hands to himself, though, rather than reaching out to cling as he always did when waking from a nightmare, but Hannibal had allowed himself to stroke one hand gently through his boy’s hair, the other rubbing comforting circles on those broad shoulders, and they passed the night that way, neither of them really sleeping.

Hannibal had tried kissing his unresponsive lover, pressing their lips together as gently as he could, but it was like kissing a statue. Face didn’t push him away, but nor did he make any move to deepen the kiss. So Hannibal had tried, again, to shock his lover out of it, little slaps to his boy’s cheek as he called his name repeatedly. But still nothing.

“Oh kid,” Hannibal sighs again, still stroking Face’s cheek. Checking his watch, he shakes his head slowly, heart pounding in his chest. “You’ve got to give me something to work with. Please. I’m running out of time and options.” 

Being the infamous Colonel Hannibal Smith will only get him so much leeway. He’d spoken to the base commander briefly over the phone last night, while BA sat by Face’s side, holding his friend’s hand tightly and keeping a silent vigil. Hannibal had had to promise to report in by 1400 the next day, just over two hours from now, and with a sinking heart he knows that, if they can’t get Face to respond, he will have no choice but to bring the medics into this whole situation. He isn’t looking forward to explaining why he hasn’t gotten his lieutenant to a doctor sooner – not like he can admit to being Face’s lover.

Murdock and BA have both tried to get a response from their friend, of course they have. Murdock is Face’s best friend, the pair two halves of the same whole in so many ways, and the pilot had tried everything he could to get a smile or a frown out of his buddy. He’d coaxed Face into a sitting position to watch as he turned cartwheels in the tiny bedroom, crashing into the wardrobe. He’d curled up into a ball of his own right by Face’s side, trying to offer physical comfort. He’d begged, pleaded, bargained, all to no avail. Face had barely blinked, and he certainly hadn’t acknowledged his friend’s actions.

BA, of course, was more the strong silent type. Hannibal had expected the big man to just sit by his friend’s side, offering that silent strength as he had done the night before, but instead he’d been surprised to see Bosco lying down beside Face, one big hand resting on his brother’s shoulder, talking to him softly. Words too soft for Hannibal to hear from his position in the doorway, but he could hear the raw emotion in BA’s voice, and he’d had to turn away, feeling as if he was intruding on a private moment. BA and Face had a strong bond no one ever really noticed until one of them was in trouble. Still waters ran deep, and all that.

“Have I done the right thing, Temp?” Hannibal stretches out slowly now on the bed by Face’s side, resting his head on the pillow a few inches from his boy’s head, turning onto his hip so they are facing each other, or they would be if his lover would only lift his eyes. “Should I have taken you straight to the medics? The psych team?” Lifting his hand, he starts stroking from Face’s shoulder all the way down to one bandaged wrist and back up again. “Have I been selfish and stupid, thinking I could help you with whatever this is?”

Murdock had said no, that Hannibal had absolutely done the right thing in keeping Face with them. That the medics would have pumped Face full of drugs and thrown him into a padded room, electro shock therapy or new drug trials, and never really getting him the help he needed. There had been a fire burning in the pilot’s eyes as he spoke, and shadows dancing, telling their own tale of past experiences Murdock had never yet shared with Hannibal. The colonel had had to agree with his crazy pilot; Face belonged with Hannibal, with BA and Murdock too, and they could help him. They just had to be patient.

Now, Hannibal dares to lean closer and presses a soft kiss to Face’s forehead. Letting his lips linger against the warm skin, he breathes, “Please, baby. Please give me something. A nod or a frown or something, anything. Are you still in there?”

Still nothing, and Hannibal pulls his head back, disappointed. He’d hoped, earlier, that Face might be pulling out of it, one moment of success in nearly a day of nothing. Face hadn’t eaten in more than twenty four hours, although he’d sipped willingly enough from a bottle of water when Hannibal had held it to his lips, and the whole team were becoming more than a little concerned. Something simple, to start with, and so Murdock had managed to keep the cooking minimal and produce a bowl of plain cereal, a healthy brand Face always swore he actually liked, though the others thought it tasted of cardboard. But Hannibal’s attempts to feed his lover had proved useless, trying to coax Face to open his mouth so he could take the spoonful of bran Hannibal was offering. Eventually, in frustration, Hannibal had pushed the handle of the spoon into his lover’s hand, watching those long fingers curl instinctively to hold it, and he’d begged Face to eat. Just a little. Just for him.

And Face had. Just a few mouthfuls, his blank stare never shifting, those blue eyes never really hinting at any sign of awareness, but Face had eaten a little. For Hannibal. It hadn’t lasted long, of course, and as soon as the spoon was dropped back into the half-full bowl of soggy mush, and Hannibal had lifted it away, Face had just curled back up on his side on the bed, staring at the wall again.

“It’s not drugs,” Hannibal muses aloud, still stroking his hand up and down Face’s arm. “You can move around, your heart is good and strong, you can clearly hear us talking to you.” He’d checked over his lover’s skin as closely as he could, both in the shower last night and during the endlessly long morning, searching for any injection marks he might have missed. “No head injury I can see, and your pupils are good, as much as I can check them.” Hard when Face won’t look him directly in the eye. 

No physical reason Hannibal can see, nothing keeping the kid from responding to him except some kind of mental trauma. Post-traumatic stress most likely, though he doesn’t know exactly what the trauma was, if not the killing of those four men – had Face’s brilliant mind finally taken as much as it could take, and simply snapped under the pressure? Worse things had happened to stronger men, Hannibal knows, especially those who do the jobs they do.

“What happened in that hut, Temp?” he starts, keeping his voice slow, steady, calm, reaching down to find Face’s limp hand and holding it tightly in his own. “I know you were captured, I know they took you away from me. I tried to get you back quicker but they took you so fast. That wasn’t your fault.” He knows how his boy’s mind works, knows Face will, on some level, be blaming himself for being the one captured. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says again, stronger now, bringing their entwined hands up to his chest and holding the back of Face’s hand against his chest, pressing it above his heart. “And whatever happened in that hut, I know you only did what you had to do. That wasn’t your fault either. You survived and you stayed alive until I could find you. I’m so proud of you for that.”

Did he just imagine that? The tiniest hint of a frown on Face’s forehead, though those eyes stay fixed and unfocussed on some unknown point. Swallowing hard, Hannibal continues slowly, watching his precious man as closely as he can to see the effect his words have. “Nothing that happened was your fault. I need you to understand that, Templeton. Whatever those four men did to you, or whatever they did to that woman and the little boy – ”

A definite flinch, then, and Face’s fingers move ever so slightly in Hannibal’s tight grip. Immediately, Hannibal leans closer, kissing his lover’s lips briefly before trying once again to catch his eye. Still staring, still unfocussed, but the first hint of tears now in those blue eyes, a definite frown on Face’s strong forehead.

“The boy…” Hannibal breathes, remembering the terrible signs of assault visible on the skinny body. Trying not to imagine what he must have been through before that merciful bullet ended his suffering. Feeling sick to his stomach. “You saw what they did to him?” The slightest nod, and Hannibal continues slowly, trying to put the pieces together. “They made you watch? They said they’d stop if you told them everything you knew?” Another nod, and Hannibal lets go of Face’s hand, sliding both his arms around the now-trembling body and pulling him close, head to chest. “Oh, baby,” he whispers, in shock and horror. “Oh, my boy. I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine what hell he must have been through.”

“I could imagine it.” 

The whispered words should be a surprise after so long without hearing Face speak, but instead they hit Hannibal with a strange sense of inevitability. The closest his lover has ever come to confessing what Hannibal has only been able to suspect until now; the deepest secret Face guards from him, only glimpsed at in the occasional nightmare and in the occasional reaction like this one. The spectre of abuse suffered when Face was just a little boy himself, bouncing from foster home to care home to catholic orphanage and back again. The facts lost in the paperwork, hidden carefully during psychological screenings, buried deeply beneath the layers that hide the real Templeton Peck beneath Face. 

Hannibal cranes his head back to look down at his lover’s eyes, focussed now though Face keeps his head turned in to Hannibal’s chest, blinking rapidly, breathing a little fast. “Talk to me, Temp,” he begs softly. “You’re safe here with me, I promise. Just talk.”

He isn’t sure what to expect. Isn’t sure if Face will start confessing all about his childhood, or start denying everything. Isn’t even sure Face won’t just crawl back into himself and fall silent once more. But instead, Face seems to take him literally, taking a deep breath and just starting to talk, his voice surprisingly steady if a little rough from a day of silence. 

“They took me, you know that. Got the jump on me. I didn’t see them coming.” Self-recrimination there, sure enough, as Hannibal had known there would be, but he doesn’t want to stop Face now he is finally speaking. “Roughed me up a little. Nothing major.”

Hannibal tightens his arms slightly, winding one around Face’s waist and bringing his other hand up to cup the back of his boy’s head, cradling him gently. “Go on,” he murmurs.

“They brought the woman and the kid in. None of them spoke much English, but I got the gist of what they wanted. If I didn’t speak up, they’d hurt her. Slapped her around a bit in front of me. Bastards.”

“But you didn’t talk.” Of course he didn’t. Hannibal knows Face better than he knows anyone, and he knows it would take more than that to make the kid talk. Much more than that.

“No. I didn’t talk.” Face pauses for a long time, and Hannibal rocks him slowly against his chest. “Then they started on the boy…”

Hannibal can feel Face shaking harder now. “Take a deep breath, Temp,” he urges softly. “Take your time.”

But Face’s words start to run together now, though his voice grows quieter. “They threw the mother outside. I could hear her screaming and banging on the door, but he never made a sound, that poor kid never screamed or cried as they – Those bastards, right in front of me, they made me watch, kept slapping at me if I tried to turn away, just kept on – ”

Hannibal squeezes his eyes shut at the bleak picture his lover has painted. “Face…” he soothes, his own voice rough now, but Face just talks on, a flood of words unleashed now, and all Hannibal can do is hold him and help him ride out the storm.

“They just kept on, and he was so little, Boss, he was just a little boy, and I swear I tried to get free, those damn manacles they had me in, I couldn’t get free, couldn’t help him, couldn’t tell them what they wanted to know, but I tried to make them take me instead, tried to convince them I could – ”

And how typical is that, Hannibal knows, though it makes his heart hurt to think about it. Face offering himself instead of that poor boy, despite his own history, despite knowing what it might do to him. “They didn’t want that,” he mumbles, still thinking aloud. “They knew you wouldn’t crack under pressure or pain. Knew you wouldn’t talk if they tortured you. They knew you were a Ranger, kid, they knew just how strong you were.”

“Not strong enough to save him from that,” Face practically sobs, and the tears start for real then, those broad shoulders shaking and strong hands suddenly clinging to Hannibal as if he will vanish if Face lets him go. Hannibal can feel his shirt grow wet as his boy’s tears soak through to his own chest, though Face is surprisingly quiet throughout, a few choked gasps and unsteady breaths giving away how devastated he really is.

Hannibal just holds on, rocking Face slowly, keeping their bodies pressed as close together as he can. He can feel tears of his own building, both for the boy and for Face, but he won’t let himself cry yet, not while Face needs him to be strong. He can also feel a burning anger, a fury at any man thinking he can do that to such an innocent child – again, thinking both about that little boy and about the little boy that Face had been – and he is so very glad Face killed them all.

When the initial flood of tears subsides slightly, when Face’s breathing becomes a little more steady, Hannibal presses a firm and reassuring kiss into his boy’s hair, not loosening his hands even a fraction. “What happened next, Temp?” he asks softly, knowing Face needs to get through all of this in one go, knowing if they stop here then his boy may never start again. “What happened to the mother?”

“They brought her back in,” Face manages to say after another minute or two has passed, minutes in which he has just laid quietly in Hannibal’s embrace. “Showed her what they had done. Told her that I hadn’t helped, that it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t,” Hannibal says quickly, needing to get that idea right out of his lover’s head. “It wasn’t your fault, Templeton, not even remotely.”

“But she blamed me. She screamed, and fought, and tried to get to her son. He wasn’t moving. Then one of the men got his gun, and he held it to my head first, and I told him to just do it, just fucking get it over with, but he shot the boy first, then the mother. They dragged the bodies outside and came back for me.”

No words of comfort Hannibal can offer. He’s seen worse things, they both have, worse crimes committed in the name of war, but not in such close quarters. He suddenly knows instinctively that some of the blood he’d found his lover covered in belonged to those two innocent lives, murdered in front of his eyes.

“You got free?” That’s the one piece of the puzzle he still can’t figure out; no surprise at all why his highly trained lieutenant tore four men apart practically with his bare hands, and Hannibal is so glad he did, but how he’d managed to get free in the first place was still a mystery. Hannibal had seen the mess the kid had made of his wrists, but there were no dislocated thumbs or broken bones to suggest he’d managed to pull his hands out of the manacles.

“They let me out.” Face huffs a dry, humourless laugh against Hannibal’s chest. “Idiots wanted to move me, I think, or maybe to fight, and they undid the cuffs. So I used them to smash the first guy’s skull in. It was game on after that.”

“Good,” Hannibal bites out, tightening his arms even further around his poor boy. “You did good.”

“And then everything… I don’t know, John, things all kind of go black after that.” Face sounds lost, again, worried almost, and Hannibal can’t have that.

“We found you about five hours after they took you,” he tells his lover quietly. “You were just sat there, covered in blood, not moving, not speaking. We got you home.”

“I don’t… I don’t remember, John, why don’t I remember?” Face lifts his head at that, resting his chin on Hannibal’s chest and looking him straight in the eye for the first time in more than a day. Those bright blue eyes are red and puffy now, cheeks flushed pink and stained with fallen tears, but he is still the most beautiful man Hannibal has ever seen, and the colonel strains his neck down to kiss his boy gently on the forehead.

“You’re safe,” he tells his man yet again. “It’s over now.”

Face shakes his head slightly without lifting his chin, fear shining in those beautiful eyes. “Is it?”

And Hannibal doesn’t have an answer for that. Or at least, he doesn’t have a comforting answer, doesn’t have anything that can fix this immediately. But Face is alert, now, and he knows what happened, and truly none of it was Face’s fault. But Face will blame himself, Hannibal knows, despite his reassurances to the contrary.

There will be reports to write, for all of them, starting with Hannibal’s debriefing in just over an hour from now. And for Face, Hannibal knows, the time has almost certainly come to speak to a professional – his lover will put up a fight, he knows, but this isn’t something Hannibal can fix, as much as he wishes with all his heart and soul that he could. The memories this incident has awoken in his boy, the abuse that Face still won’t talk to him about, the details Hannibal isn’t at all sure he is strong enough to hear, all of that has to be dealt with before they can even think about moving on to their next job. 

How Face ever got through basic training, let alone through Ranger school, is something Hannibal will never understand. It shows just how strong his boy is, how determined he was to succeed, to make something of his life, and Face is by far one of the best Rangers Hannibal has ever seen – he knows he can say that with a sense of detachment as his commanding officer, despite also being the man’s lover, and he knows Face can get through this. Knows he can help Face to get through it, and come out the other side even stronger than before. 

“We’ll get through this together, Temp,” he tells his boy now, pouring every ounce of love he feels for this incredible man into his words. “You will be alright, and I won’t ever leave you. Nothing you have told me changes how I feel about you. I love you so very much, you know that, right?”

“Right.” A sign of how far they’ve come, Hannibal knows, that Face manages a tiny smile and a nod before burying his head back into Hannibal’s chest. He just holds his lover, still rocking him gently, until he finally feels the moment Face falls asleep in his arms. If the nightmares come, as they might well do, Hannibal will be there to chase them away. And if that means he has to miss his meeting with the base commander, then so be it. 

There is nothing more important than this man, Hannibal knows that without a shadow of a doubt. Nothing more important than Face.


End file.
